Totally Private by Bella Swan
by Edie french
Summary: Bella wants Edward the first day of photography class. Edward, a moody, scruffy art boy, is the object of every girl's affection. Bella wants Edward. And Edward wants Bella...  even if he doesn't know it yet.
1. Prologue

_Manchester Diary One: September-March_

**TOTALLY PRIVATE!**

Name: Bella Swan

Age: Seventeen

Lives: Manchester via Brighton

Height: 5'4

Weight: 115 to 120 pounds (depending on how much ice cream I've eaten in a twenty four hour period)

Hair: Brown

Eyes: Brown

Favorite book: Emma by Jane Austen

Favorite Film: Ghost world, Bring it on, and Breakfast at Tiffany's (it's impossible to pick just one)

Lust object: Jake Gyllenhaal, and Edward

Favorite thing in the world: My vintage Dior handbag I bought off eBay

Make-up item I couldn't live without: Lancôme Juicy Tubes

Ambition: For Edward to fall widely and passionately in love with me and take me on a road trip across America.


	2. Chapter 1

**September 14****th**

Do you ever get the feeling that you're waiting for your life to begin? I feel like I invented that feeling. Cause today is all about shiny, new things. Scary, shiny new things. And instead of jumping out of bed, ready to dazzle the world with my brightest smile and my cute new hairpins, I'm huddled under my duvet, scribbling in my Emily Strange notebook.

I mean, I guess I should be rising to the challenge but y'know, not so much. It's my first day at a further education college so, officially, I'm not a schoolgirl anymore. And, OK, I might be studying what I love but I'm studying at a college where there are art students and drama students and everyone (apart from the savage, psycho Barbies studying hairdressing who laughed at me in the cafeteria on the day I had my interview) is achingly cool.

So, how come I know that I'm going to feel like so young and phony compared to everyone else? Like, someone's going to tap me on the shoulder and say, "Hey kid, you don't belong here, back to school." But school and my friends are miles and oceans away. Why did Charlie have to get a new job and decide to transfer me, Mom and Pudding halfway across the world? Because he's hell-bent on ruining my life and destroying what little self-esteem I have, that's why.

**September 22**

I got this massive lecture from the parents at breakfast about "making more of an effort to fit in" and "we know the move from Forks to England was hard on you but it's been four weeks and you should have a adjusted by now." I'm sure they've taken lessons in how to make me feel like a socially dysfunctional freak of nature. They don't understand though. All the people in my classes at college were at school/youth club together and they just _completely _ignore me. And, besides, its really hard to just crowbar myself into someone's conversation, like, "Me too! I love The Thrills. Isn't the lead singer just the dreamiest?" Insert retching noises. I just can't do stuff like that. Especially being a just turned seventeen year old that skipped a year back at forks high, and is probably the youngest child that this English college has ever seen.

But I knew I wouldn't hear the end of this (my mother is the missing link between Rottweilers and rat-catchers) so I got pro-active and signed up for a photography club that starts next week. I might not make any friends but at least I'll be learning about my favorite thing.

So, directly after scribbling my name into the sign up sheet on the notice board, I was ambling down the hall, nothing on my mind but whether I should have another pack of Skips, when five minutes later my entire life changed! One moment it sucked and then the next, nothing was going to be the same again. No warning, no booming music. There I was in the cafeteria scraping a plastic spoon through the hot chocolate granolas' at the bottom of my cup and hoping no one would notice me sitting there all alone, when I looked up, locked into a pair of deep green eyes, and felt my spiritual self shift into orbit.

His face was all hard planes and angles, cheekbones and jaw line softened only by these pillowy lips. His hair was equally confused and couldn't decide whether it was a fin or a mullet or just really messy or all of the above. But it was the color of pennies or maybe cinnamon that I can only eat in tiny amounts because it's too rich. He was wearing jeans that were faded, a Sex Pistols shirt, and a suit jacket. All of him was in chaos and it was hard to work out whether he was beautifully odd or oddly beautiful. I never knew boys could be beautiful but this one was.

Then he kinda looked beyond me and frowned as if he was annoyed at my audacity for daring to be in his line of vision. Boys that look like that always reckon they can get away with that kind of behavior. He's probably an arrogant dickweed but what the hell, he's a drop dead gorgeous arrogant dickweed.

I saw him again, later that afternoon, striding across the courtyard lawn like the hounds of hell were snapping at his heels. It was like everything around him slowed down and then I heard someone shout, "Edward!" and he turned around. His name's Edward. Of course, he's called Edward. How could he be called anything else?

**September 25**

This is what I've found out about Edward, or the heir to my heart, as I now think of him:

He's on the Art foundation course, and he's 20. He's four years older then me. Age gaps are vey sexy.

He's one of the in crowd, along with his two friends, Emmett (bleached streaks, old school sneakers) and Jasper (really tall, always wears a black turtleneck).

They spend a large proportion of each day in the café across the road, but upstairs, which apparently is far more socially acceptable then downstairs with all the housewives.

Edward works in Rhythm Records on Wednesday afternoons and all day Saturday and Friday.

How do I know all of this? Because, I was incredibly brave today and actually spoke to this girl, called Jessica who is in my class.

I was sitting in our English class with an empty desk on the other side of me and an animated, "I'm just waiting for all fifty of my closest friends to suddenly materialize" expression on my face, when this girl plonked herself down next to me.

I glanced at her but she was rummaging about in her bag so I went back to doodling Edwards's name all over my notebook.

"I like your nail polish."

No one has ever spoken to me at college apart from the professors, so it took me a moment to process the information that she was actually talking. To me. I looked at a sparkly red nail and then at her. She gave me a look like she thought I was possibly mentally challenged.

"Um, thanks. I didn't realize you were speaking to me," I muttered.

She nodded impatiently. "So, are you from Manchester Girls School" I don't recognize you."

It was strange. Like, she wasn't actually being rude but there was something in her tone of voice that wasn't far off it.

"No, I'm from a small town back in Washington, in the US," I said, "My dad got transferred here over the summer. My names Bella."

"Bell?"

"No, Bella. Its short for Isabella," I mumbled the last part because I hated the evil joke that my parents decided to put on my birth certificate.

"I'm Jessica," the girl announced fixing her top.

"That's a cool top," I ventured nervously because it was, and after a moment's pause, Jessica seemed to let out the breath she'd been holding and smiled at me.

"Thanks. So do you like living here?"

"It's all right," I said without much conviction. "I miss my friends though."

Jessica nodded and then glanced over at my notebook, which was lying on the desk with Edward's name plastered all over it.

"Oh, Edward." She grinned knowingly. "He's very snackable. When did you meet him?"

My face went exactly the same shade as my nail polish and I stuttered some nonsense about how Edward was actually the name of a guy from Forks but Jessica wasn't buying it for a second.

"Yeah, right," she snorted. "Everyone loves Edward. It's like a right of passage thing, you get breasts, you realize sitting downstairs in Fritzsch's is terminally naff, and you fall in love with Edward."

"Are you in love with Edward then?" Just by saying his name, it felt like I'd signed my soul over to the devil.

Jessica snorted again. "No, because I'm in love with his best friend Jasper. He's in love with me too. We're a regular love fest."

And then she went into this long, complicated story about Jasper and his ex-girlfriend that I couldn't really follow but I nodded a lot and then I tried to make a few discreet enquiries about Edward but I might just as well have had " I love Edward" tattooed on my forehead. Yeah, that's how subtle I am.

**September 30 **

Edward sat at the table in front of me today in the cafeteria, but like facing me. I pretended to be engrossed in one of my English books, but I couldn't help stealing these glances at him. His left eyebrow is broken by a scar, a thin white line; it made me feel weird every time I looked at it. I wonder how it happened.

I think he was copying someone's homework (do Art foundation students get homework?) because he sat all hunched over these papers, a pen clenched in his long fingers, and his forehead all crinkled up, like he was deep in thought.

It made me feel sad because even though he was just a couple feet away from me, he was really a million miles out of my reach. He was beautiful and everyone loves him and there I was sharing breathing space with him and he didn't even know I existed,

I felt small and insignificant. He's a proper person. He matters to all sorts of people and I'm just a stupid kid.

And he probably doesn't trip on the bus stairs or loose all his cognitive though process when he's in close proximity to someone he likes. Oh, please don't let him like anyone, I thought.

And then he looked up. His face came to life as this girl sashayed over to him and planted a kiss on his cheek. A pretty, hipster girl with an inky black bob and a slash of crimson lipstick and a cute back mini dress, which would have looked ridiculous on me.

That would be Alice, Jasper's infamous ex girlfriend. Jessica told me all about her yesterday. Apparently her and Edward have been friends ever since they bonded in a sandpit at nursery school and they practically grew up together. So, that would be good cause they'd be like brother and sister, but I've never seen any siblings lovin' it up like they were. She was playing with his hair and he was JUST LETTING HER!

And the other suckiness that was my day? The people in my English class hate me. They were sitting on the next table along from me in the café and talking about how I was "up myself" and "weird." Better than being a bunch of cookie-cutter deadheads.

**October 7**

I couldn't write last night because my hands were still shaking! Picture the scene: me sulking into that photography course in converse and a scruffy old black shirt cause I couldn't be asked to make any effort and then I nearly fall out of my pants because who's taking up the back row but Edward! And Emmett! And Jasper! In fact, the whole class was full of art students (apparently they have to it as part of their course), so Martyn (the professor) told me to sit in the back row, next to Jasper, as there was nowhere else to sit.

It was the most exquisite torture. Jasper sort of smiled at me but my face had contorted into this weird grimace. And then Edward leaned across Jasper and spoke to me.

"Hey," he said in a voice that was all broken glass and silk. "Have you got a spare pen I can barrow?"

I am the lamest girl in the world. All I could do was shake my head. My tongue had become this heavy, lumpy thing. But when I got my camera out (which I had been saving up for almost two years) I heard him say to Emmett, "She's got a cool camera."!

The photography lesson went straight over my head. I couldn't take my eyes off Edward's hands. He's got beautiful fingers; they're really long and thin and look like they should be permanently picking out chords on a shiny black guitar. Also, when the class was over, they all went for coffee but he held the door open for me and WINKED at me! I can't believe that my stomach lurched at such obvious behavior but, hey, it did. My _everything_ lurched.

**October 13**

College has been a lot better. I get along really well with Jessica. Well, she goes on and on about Jasper (she's made me tell her, like fifty tines about sitting next to him in photography) and I've started hanging out with these two boys Nat and Trent from History of Art class. They're really cool. Nat has the naughtiest expression on his face all the time, like he's thinking evil things. And Trent is so pint sized cute that I want to pick him up and stash him in my pencil case and take him home. They came over to talk to me when they saw the Andy Warhol sticker on my folder and said they'd seen me around and had been daring each other to come and say hello.

"Why didn't you just come over and say hi?" I asked them. And Nat just shrugged and said they were a bit intimidated by me, which is wrong because I am the least intimidating person in the world. I mean, fluffy little baby bunnies are more intimidating then me.

But the best thing that's happened is that Edward is now actively aware of my existence! He smiles at me when he sees me. I can't believe I'm being such a wuss over a mere boy-shape; I seem to be loosing all my kick ass faculties. In fact, everything was swimming along quite pleasantly and then life suddenly got seriously heavy and weird. When I got to photography class yesterday (late as usual, but I had made a special effort and put my favorite light grey and black polka dot vintage dress and my new high black boots), the only seat free was next to Edward.

I felt as if all the molecules in my body were straining towards him. He was wearing a faded Pink Floyd T-shirt, like it was really old. And I realized that if I leaned very slightly to my right, his bare arm would be touching my bare arm, which made me feel almost sick with nerves.

I didn't even dare sneak any sideways looks at him but then Martyn said we had to get into pairs to do this assignment and told us to work with the people next to us. Yup, the impossible just fell right into my lap. Edward's my photography partner! But instead of being pleased, it just makes me want to cry.

I couldn't speak at all. He must think that I'm a complete freak. I had to hide my hands under the table so he wouldn't see them shaking as he tried to talk to me.

"So I guess we haven't been formally introduced," he said, and he looked at me, and all I could do was stare at my notebook in front me and know that every part of me was blushing. My face, the tips of my ears even the bits between my toes. Edward, to give him credit, soldiered on. "I'm Edward, I'm on the Art foundation course, are you a freshmen?"

I managed to nod and shrug and shake my head in reply to all his questions. Give it a week or two and I might upgrade to odd grumping noises.

Edward had decided what our project was going to be, which was taking photographs of lots of crumbling buildings, as far as I can tell. He was chattering away about the influence of gothic revival in a lot of Manchester's architecture in the nineteenth century and I could barely hear him, though he did say something about "flying buttresses" and then laughed.

I think its fair to say that Edward's got me down as a mute. Even worse, he's coming here, TO MY HOUSE on Sunday. This is not a good thing, especially as I actually had to talk to him at that point and try to be cool and not forget my address. I started stammering and blushing even more then I already had. It was hideous. And I glanced up and he was just giving me this look accompanied by a little half smile that just about removed the top layer of my skin.

**October 15**

I can't concentrate on anything but the fact that Edward is coming over on Sunday. By some miracle, the parents are going to a wedding on Saturday and staying over so they wont be home until Sunday night and my mother wont be barging in, offerering soy crackers and oatcakes.

Jessica told me that Edward has a terrible rep and that he's left a "trail of broken hearts in every girls school form here to Cheshire." And that he and Alice have this strange contest to see who can get off with the most people but its really because they have this love/hate relationship and they're trying to score points off each other.

"Jessica, have you _seen_ Edward?" I asked her incredulously as we sat on the wall by the nursery block and split a bag of chips between classes. " He's gorgeous. If he wanted Alice, he could have her. He doesn't need to play games."

But Jessica gave me a funny look and then changed the subject.

I can't seem to settle. I wish Sunday was here and then I wish that it was never, ever going to happen. When I'm alone inside my head, I have these amazing conversations with Edward and I'm funny and intelligent and just a little bit quirky. But in reality I know that I'm just a stupid, dumb girl too chicken to even talk to him.

**October 17**

In twenty-four hours Edward will be in my house, It's just too awful to contemplate. And as if I wasn't stressed enough, Jessica invited herself to stay the night. I like her and all but I just wanted to be alone tonight so I could work myself up into a hysterical state.

**October 18**

Jessica's as good as dead. She came around, spiked my diet Pepsi with vodka, and then persuaded me that it'd be a really good idea to cut bangs in. or a "fringe" "You've got really cool eyes, but no one can see em," She kept saying. And I felt so woozy that in the end she just kind of lunged at me with the scissors and butchered my hair. _Then _she threw up on my mom's art deco rug.

Edward's coming over in half an hour (excuse me while I have a heat attack). The lounge area stinks of Dettol, I've got a killer headache and worst of all, my so-called fringe is crooked and curling up at the ends. I wish I were dead. No I don't, I wish everyone else were dead.

**October 18 - but later**

By the time Edward turned up I was practically hyper- ventilating. Every time I looked in the mirror my fringe had become even more lame. It was flicking out at the edges and just wouldn't lie flat. Did I mention that is was completely uneven too?

I was just in the middle of changing, so I was wearing my knee length hipster skirt_ and_ the Lisa Simpson shirt I'd slept in, when the doorbell rang. I swear to god, my limbs went into spasms. I manage to open the door and Edward was slouched nonchalantly against the doorjamb, dresses all in black. He slowly uncoiled himself, smiled at me in a not very reassuring way, and handed me a bag. "I though we could have these with our tea," he said, with another smile that was a millimeter away from being a smirk.

I just stared at his feet, but eventually I took the bag and looked inside.

He'd brought biscuits. When I glanced at him, he was staring at me really intently. It was my f_reakin_ fringe, wasn't it?

"You look different," he said after I'd just stood there and gazed at him for five minutes, then, he reached out his hand and lifted my chin. My stomach dipped all the way down to the silver nail polish on my toes. I pulled away cause I couldn't bear it any longer.

"It's my bangs. I had a run in with a pair of scissors," I muttered and he was like, "Wow, you actually talk!"

And then we were sitting on the stairs and I told him about Jessica and he said in this strange, strained voice, "Oh, that sounds like Jessica."

I looked at our knees and mine just looked so small and childish compared to his. Even his knees seem dangerous. Does that sound strange?

Anyway. To cut a long story short, literally, we ended up in my bathroom so that Edward could clean up my fringe. He was really into the idea and I figure that it couldn't look any worse.

He didn't actually seem to be interested in _me, _but my fringe held a fatal attraction for him.

It was a very, very intimate situation. I sat on the edge of the tub and Edward knelt in front me, cupping my chin and turning my head this way and that before he started snipping. I'd always vaguely thought all boys who cut hair had to be gay, but Edward was so not gay. The way he went about cutting my fringe was more about me being a sculpture or a drawing and him being an artist, molding clay or smudging charcoal.

And then when he'd finished, he wouldn't let me look. Instead he did something which freaked me out. He told me to close my eyes and he started, very gently, blowing on my face to get rid of all the little hairs. He was holding me by the shoulders to stop me from moving and I wanted him to kiss me so badly. More then I've ever wanted anything.

But he didn't.

He just turned me round to face the mirror and I have to admit my hair was happening. My fringe was really short but it suited me with the rest of my long hair framing my face. The devastating half smile which makes me turn into a puddle of not so quite jelly was back on Edward's face but he just said, " I've given you Jean Seberg hair. It looks really cute."

I was sort of "aw shucks" ing but he just said dead seriously, "Your eyes are fantastic." Then the moment was gone, so he went downstairs and made tea.

But the kettle had barely boiled before Edward's phone started vibrating and he had to go. It was just, "Time I wasn't here." We didn't even take any photos or talk. One moment he was in the kitchen dunking sugar into his tea and I was summoning up the courage to open my mouth and from complete sentences, the next he was out the front door with a quick bye. I watched him disappear down the street and as he got further away the sadder I felt. Then I realized the parents would be home soon so I went to inspect the rug for permanent puke damage.

Later on, I googled Jean Seberg. She was an actress who starred in a film called _Breathless_ and although she had a crop that I could never get away with, she also had a short fringe. And was pretty in this really gamine way.

So did Edward think I was like Jean Seberg, pretty in a gamine way…or was it just my fringe?

I have to stop this obsessing about him but its almost like I want to consume Edward whole. When I'm with him, I'm a different person. I become really aware of myself and I'm not sure I like it. I don't know. Why is this whole boy/girl thing so confusing?


End file.
